In an internal combustion engine, an air/fuel ratio in a combustion chamber of said internal combustion engine prior to a combustion process critically affects engine efficiency and emissions during the combustion process. The air/fuel ratio of an air/fuel mixture prior to combustion can be determined e.g. by measuring the residual oxygen content and/or residual hydrocarbon content of the exhaust gas from the combustion process. For this purpose exhaust gas probes can be used, for example, which are implemented as lambda probes. The lambda probe is preferably disposed in an exhaust tract of the internal combustion engine upstream and/or downstream of a catalytic converter. In an upper partial load range or in the full load range of the internal combustion engine, the mass flow of air through the internal combustion engine, particularly through the combustion chambers and exhaust tract, is so large that air/fuel ratios of individual exhaust packets from different combustion chambers can be differentiated from one another by means of the lambda probe. This allows cylinder-selective closed-loop lambda control of the air/fuel ratio in the upper partial load range and in the full load range.